Speech Technology eWeekly - December 01, 2003

Q & A

James Colby, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development, Comverse

The small and medium-size enterprise segment has been virutally an untapped market for carriers. Until now. Comverse, by way of a partnership with Angel.com, is venturing into this area. James Colby, vice president of marketing & business Development for Comverse explains why his company teamed with Angel.com and SMEs can improve their customer service using voice-driven services.

Marcel Wassink, Managing Director, Philips Speech Processing

Last year, Philips Speech Processing (PSP) sold part of its speech recognition technology to ScanSoft, but not all of it. The large vocabulary speech recognition segment of the business remains and PSP managing director Marcel Wassink says their focused strategy is now the market leadership in the medical and legal dictation recognition markets. Find out what else Wassink has to say about the dictation market.

Larry Heck, Vice President of R&D, Nuance Communications

Dr. Larry Heck leads Nuance's research and engine development efforts in voice authentication, natural language processing, speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis (TTS). The November/December issue of Speech Technology Magazine takes a look at voice biometrics and Dr. Heck believes "the last 10 years have seen tremendous breakthroughs in making voice authentication work over different telephone channels."

Speech Technology News

Elan Speech Launches PocketSpeech Sayso

TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Available in five languages, solution is designed to speech-enable for PDAs.

Sennheiser Communications Releases Five New Headsets

OLD LYME, CT - SH-330 Headset features noise-canceling microphone to filter out background noise.

Babel TTS Selected By Imagetalk

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - PocketBabil will be integrated into Imagetalk Smartphone applications.

iVoice Installs System for Full House Productions

MATAWAN, NJ - Speech Enabled Auto Attendant implemented to transfer incoming after-hours callers to their intended party using voice.

Nuance and Aspect Solution Benefits United Kingdom's Royal Mail

MENLO PARK, CA and SAN JOSE, CA - According to Royal Mail, self-service technology will reduce its Track & Trace call handling costs by 25 percent.

MacSpeech Offers Free Exhibit Hall Pass to Macworld

SALEM, NH - VIP exhibit hall pass to Macworld, scheduled for January 6-9, 2004, will be given away with each iListen software package purchase while supplies last.

Equivox Established as Stand-Alone Operating Entity

SHRIVENHAM, ENGLAND - Created from the Smart Voice product line of Domain Dynamics Ltd., Equivox produces embedded Speech Recognition and Voice Authentication products.

PhoneAnything Launches Web-over-phone Service

LONDON, ENGLAND - Service to allow visually impaired access to the Internet via the phone.

iVoice Releases New Version of Speech Enabled Auto Attendant

MATAWAN, NJ - Version 3.2 uses a Telephone Application Program Interface, designed to allow integration of applications with different telephone private branch exchange systems.

Swisscom Systems Licenses Voxpilot's Telecom Solution

DUBLIN, IRELAND and BERN, SWITZERLAND - Partnership will allow companies to deliver outsourced VoiceXML services to the Swiss market.

Aculab Announces Aculab Communications Exchange

MILTON KEYNES, ENGLAND - ACE is scheduled for February 17-20, 2004 in Hawaii.

SER Solutions Donates to The Good Shepherd Alliance

DULLES, VA - SER to contribute $25,000 to the Loudoun Good Shepherd Alliance Emergency Homless Shelters.

Rhetorical Partners with Motorola on VIAMOTO Solution

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - Speech synthesis software will be provided for use with VIAMOTO, designed to allow users access to location-specific information on wireless devices.

Voice Signal Solutions Available on Samsung Wireless Phone

OVERLAND PARK, KS - Voice-Activated Status incorporated into VI660 model to enable users to view and hear updates to signal strength and batter life using voice commands and voice input.

Microsoft Speech Technologies Announce Updates to Beta Server and Development Kit

REDMOND, WA - New features and functionalities designed to meet customer needs for developing speech applications using the Microsoft® Speech Server and Microsoft Speech Application Software Development Kit.

Pronexus Announces VAR with Vocantas

OTTAWA, CANADA - Addition to value added reseller program will allow Pronexus to offer telephony automation solutions for customer service environments.

VoiceGenie Announces Partnerships with Elan, VoiceTrust

TORONTO, CANADA, MUNICH, GERMANY and TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Partnership with VoiceTrust created to deliver packaged speech applications for secure user authentication.

Rhetorical Releases rVoice 4.2

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - Latest version of text-to-speech engine includes rVoice Studio, a graphical development tool used to create ActivePromptsTM.

Genesys Names Chairman and CEO

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Ad Nederlof to become chairman and Laurent Philonenko appointed president and CEO effective January 2004.

Voxware and LXE Create Alliance

ATLANTA, GA and PRINCETON, NJ - VoiceLogistics will be available on LXE's handheld wireless computer following the conclusion of beta testing.

NeoSpeech Selected by HomeSeer

FREMONT, CA - VoiceText™ used for HomeSeer's PC-based home automation system to enable the home to talk to its occupants.

Fonix To Acquire LecStar Telecom

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Transaction is anticipated to provide Fonix with revenue and distribution channels for its speech solutions.

Clarity Technologies Selected by StarCore

TROY, MI - CVC noise and echo suppression software has been integrated with StarCore SP120X and SP140X DSP subsystem products.

AVST Releases Seneca for Hands-free Communication

Voice-activated office solution is designed to integrate with phone systems, voicemail, fax and e-mail applications using Nuance speech technology.

Rhetorical and BBN Technologies Sign Speech Technology Licensing Agreement

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND and CAMBRIDGE, MA - Partnership gives BBN Technologies, a Verizon company, the ability to integrate current and future versions of Rhetorical's text-to-speech (TTS) technology into its speech recognition system.

ScanSoft Solution Implemented into BMW Internal IT Hotline

PEABODY, MA and GHENT, Belgium - SpeechPearl® and RealSpeak™ are being used to assist with high priority technical questions into the BMW internal IT hotline.

NSC Announces New Version of NSCBoard Server

Version 3.7 of the NSCBoard designed to allow configuration of speech recognition resources on the board, use slot filling capabilities and write grammars in ABNF format.

Elix, Nu Echo and CONCEPT S2i Unveil Holiday Application

MONTREAL, QUEBEC - Application allows children to have personalized interaction with Santa and his automated elf.

Nuance and Mundwerk Enable Voice-Driven Dating Service

LONDON, ENGLAND and MENLO PARK, CA - German speech-based voice automation service allows callers to register, create a profile and contact potential matches using speech.

ScanSoft TTS Deployed by Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA and PEABODY, MA - Speechify® to speech-enable daily news service comprised of content from The New Zealand Herald.

NetByTel Integrates UPS OnLine Tools into its Suite of Voice Self-Service Applications

Walmart.com and Computers4Sure were among the first to integrate NetByTel's solution.

Babel-Infovox ASR and TTS Deployed by Lingsoft

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - Solution provider to Finnish software companies chooses Babear in order to offer its customers other European languages.

Convedia and Sylantro Partner to Provide IP Centrex Solutions

CAMPBELL, CA and VANCOUVER, CANADA - Companies complete Interoperability testing of their respective products and announce a partnership to deliver IP Centrex solutions for telecommunication service providers.

Philips Releases UK MultiMed ConText

VIENNA, AUSTRIA - SpeechMagic supplement designed to allow UK hospitals to integrate a hospital-wide speech recognition system with their Electronic Patient Record.

BeVocal Names Huxley Vice President of Sales

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - Huxley appointed to drive sales of hosted voice applications in telecom and call center markets.

NMS Communications Announce Open Access Products

FRAMINGHAM, MA - Framework is designed to provide functionality for developing and deploying applications and communications services such as IP conferencing, mobile video, speech-activated services and wireless entertainment.

Phonetic Systems Announces Partner Program

BILLERICA, MA - Phonetic Systems Channel Application Partner Program will allow partners to resell Phonetic Receptionist.

VeCommerce Solution Reducing Call Time for Suncorp

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Deployed in December 2002, VeCommerce reports a reduction in initial call time to Suncorp's call centers of 50 percent.

Syntellect Acquires Teloquent Communications

Enghouse Systems purchased supplier of contact center software for a reported $5 million.

Rehor Joins Vocalocity as Chief Architect

ATLATNA, GA - Co-editor of VoiceXML 2.0 standard will be tasked with launching Vocalocity's technical services group.

Nexidia Releases NEXminer Product Line

ATLANTA, GA - NEXminer features multiple language audio-video mining solutions designed to allow users to apply business rules across their repositories and extract relevant information.

Voice Signal's Software Added to Samsung SCH-v420 Handset

WOBURN, MA - Voice Activated Phonebook included on third Samsung handset for Korean market.

LumenVox and Elan Speech Partner

SAN DIEGO, CA and TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Marketing alliance developed to deliver speech-enabled applications to enterprises worldwide.